Convention Center Gamble On

Cities Put On Poker Faces While Chips Pile Up, Stakes Climb

The county's quest for a convention center site is no longer a friendly game of pinochle open to the average Joe.

It has become a high-stakes poker game with nine players at the table, some sweating, a few dry and stone-faced, depending on the cards in their hands.

The winnings? A $50 million convention center that promises to lure hundreds of thousands of visitors and push surrounding land values sky-high.

But for some of the shallow-pocketed players, the stakes may already have shut them out of the game.

On Tuesday, the city of Boca Raton threw $5 million in cash incentives into the pot on behalf of the only south county proposal, Knight Center's 62-acre site at Congress Avenue and Interstate 95.

The Knight property still has stiff competition from at least two highly ranked proposals: West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach, each of which has chipped in $12 million in incentives.

"We're not in that kind of league," said Robert Shapiro, a private landowner who is offering a no-frills package: selling the county 28 acres for $8.85 million at Okeechobee Boulevard and Jog Road. "I have no other chips to play. The high stakes have left me behind."

Come Saturday, all nine players will lay their cards on the table for the county-appointed Convention Center Task Force, which will hear each site proposal presentation in detail. The task force will use the information to draw up a short list of sites on Monday.

Until then, a few of the players are choosing to keep their cards close to the vest.

The Investment Corp. of Palm Beach has put its 53-acre Palm Beach Jai-Alai site on the table, proposing that turning its 300,000-square-foot fronton into a convention center would save time and money.

But one nugget the Jai-Alai group has not revealed is how much it is willing to sell or lease the land for.

"We're trying to stay out of the political game of going against anybody or upping the ante," said Joe Love, Investment Corp.'s government affairs director. But "we need all the help we can get, any surprises we can find."

West Palm Beach, too, is wearing a poker face. The city already set the tone in May, when it dumped its Municipal Stadium site proposal and replaced it with a much more lucrative site across from the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.

Aside from offering to donate the 28-acre tract - which would be part of the progressive Uptown/Downtown development - the city also kicked in up to $250,000 a year for operation costs.

Riviera Beach saw that bid and raised it, adding $275,000 in annual operating costs to its package, which already had $6.5 million in incentives. The city is asking for about $7 million for the land. Watching the stakes climb, Boca Raton developer Bill Knight leaned on some south county cities to help boost his hand. His proposal includes an asking price of $10 per square foot for his property, which would cost the county up to $6 million on the high end.

Boca Raton and Delray Beach are trying to strengthen Knight's hand, since each city wrote county commissioners in support of his proposal. Boca Raton will put up $5 million over 20 years. Delray Beach hasn't committed to a figure. Neither city knows yet where it will get the money.

"You just have to step up and give it your best shot. But I don't want to get into a bidding war," Boca Raton Mayor Carol Hanson said.

Neither do the rest of the players at the table. Aside from West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and Knight, none of the others plan to alter their proposals.

Those with proposals said they had faith the task force members would judge them on the merits of the sites, not the money dangling in their faces.